Many retail stores, such as supermarkets, use checkstands that comprise various components configured to identify items in a customer's order, process coupons, accept payment, hold items while a customer's order is being processed, and/or perform other tasks to complete a customer's order. Most checkstands known in the art today comprise one or more computer terminals and/or scanning devices that are able to identify and/or record each item being purchased by a customer, for example, by optically scanning product identification codes (e.g., bar codes) affixed to each items. Once an item has been scanned or identified, in many instances, the item may be placed on a conveyor (e.g., a conveyor belt) that transports the item to another collection area where the items can be bagged and/or held until the customer is ready to remove them before leaving the store. Examples of checkstands that include scanning devices and conveyors that may be utilized in this manner are disclosed in, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,491,218 to Nguyen and U.S. Patent Application Publication 2009/0090583 A1 by Bonner, et al.
In some instances, it may be desirable to use a particular computer terminal or scanning device at a checkstand to identify and/or record items in a customer's order before the previous customer's items have been bagged or removed by the customer, for example, during periods of high customer volume, in stores having a limited number of checkstands, and/or in a number of other circumstances. However, if items purchased by one customer are scanned and placed on the conveyor while a previous customer's items are still being held in the collection area at the end of that conveyor, those new items coming into the collection area may become intermingled with the previous customer's items. This may, among other problems, complicate bagging of each customer's items and/or create confusion when the customers attempt to remove their respectively purchased items from the collection area.
Moreover, if a collection area is full and there is no room for additional items in that collection area, subsequent items placed on the conveyor (whether belonging to that customer or a subsequent customer) may be pushed against items already in the collection area as the conveyor transports them. Soft or fragile items (e.g., bread, eggs, etc.) may be squeezed, broken, or otherwise damaged by the force of other items being pushed against them in these circumstances.
The attendant or user at the checkstand may stop the conveyor in order to prevent items from becoming intermingled and/or damaged as discussed above. However, this may cause a backlog of items on the conveyor, which may, among other problems, require the attendant or user to stop scanning items and/or rearrange items to make room for additional items, thereby reducing the efficiency of the checkout process.
Therefore, what is needed is an apparatus or system for effectively directing the movement of items along one or more conveyors in a retail checkstand without causing damage to certain types of items.